Final Fantasy XIII

[Daxis]

p.s.: I was lazily defending the game by asking who here has actually experienced the game and experienced the gameplay and the story or whatever before giving actual criticism, because, while I see people here who live in western countries and speak no japanese, I see lots of criticism for something they've never played. The worse score I've seen on this game is a 70%, which, honestly? Is pretty damn good.

 

[mawk]

p.p.s. cool your jets, people are completely entitled to voice their first impressions and whether or not they are anticipating its release. expecting more when the game isn't even out yet is sort of ridic.

 

[Kuahewa huki 'ino]

The worse score I've seen on this game is a 70%, which, honestly? Is pretty damn good.

p.p.p.s. in the current state of the video game sales review industry, Big Rigs wouldn't get less than a 70%.

 

[Daxis]

The worse score I've seen on this game is a 70%, which, honestly? Is pretty damn good.

p.p.p.s. in the current state of the video game sales review industry, Big Rigs wouldn't get less than a 70%.

PS: I know it's a sort of smart answer and all, but I'll just be annoyingly serious:
Big rigs isn't exactly current(7 years old), and it receives these scores from all the way back then and even now.
Sales have nothing to do with score, rating, and general worth of the game. They may correlate, but a bad selling game doesn't MEAN it's a bad game as much as a good selling game damn well doesn't mean it's good.

70% ratings of ff13 is the LOWEST score that I can see I see many that say near 100%- it ranges from the mid 80's(roughly) to mid/high nineties.

 

[Daxis]

p.p.s. cool your jets, people are completely entitled to voice their first impressions and whether or not they are anticipating its release. expecting more when the game isn't even out yet is sort of ridic.

meh. I see people ridiculing every single aspect of the game when they have not played it, even ignoring actual ratings by trusted reviewers, without doubting but bandwagoning previous jeerings of said people sorta ridic

 

[Jason]

You can never trust reviewers, they give alsorts of games reviews they don't deserve, I'd prefer to review a game based on my own opinions of it, and based on what we've seen of FFXIII, I don't like a single bit of it, nor will I, and I won't buy it either, unless maybe I see it for £10-20 somewhere... which is less than half of the retail price.

 

[moxie]

Considering the game isn't even out in english yet, that's what this thread is for - discussing our first impression, be it positive OR negative.

I was veering off-topic in my last post, which is why I promptly admitted my faggotry. However, claiming that people are bandwagoning because we're being objective and critical is just plain silly.

As for reviews, I refuse to judge something's worthiness based on an arbitrary numerical score. Especially considering how terrible most video game reviewers are. You could probably release a game that consists of a home video of some Renn Faire enthusiasts badly fake-swordfighting, with QTE's and dramatic lens flare at random intervals while Disturbed plays in the background, and some fuckstick on Gamespot would give it a 9/10.

That said, they have a black guy that doesn't look and act just like Mr.T. Attempting to branch out from 80's stereotypes to 90's-2000's stereotypes? YOU DECIDE.

 

[Kuahewa huki 'ino]

even ignoring actual ratings by trusted reviewers

I won't trust anyone on the payroll of a related interest. I wouldn't even trust my own reviews of my own picture books.

And by "sales reviews," I didn't mean "sales numbers." I meant "reviews given for the purpose of bolstering sales." Which, y'know, is exactly what professional reviews are. It didn't used to be like this, because the only association magazines had with game publishers was for permissions. They made their money from sales rather than from sponsorship, and were entertainment magazines disguised as game review publications.

Also, Big Rigs only gets bad reviews these days because it's the quintessential "worst game ever." If it was released today, it would get a 70% at least.

bandwagoning

I have distrusted this game since it was announced that there would be more than one installment before it was even put into development. That is like the opposite of a bandwagon.

 

[Daxis]

I have to admit, the reason I'm ragging on this is because I see nothing but negative reviews from the people here when reviews from magazines and reviewers, which sorta gives me an impression of bandwagoning. When looking over a game, I try too see the good and bad aspects of it(mostly), and seeing that no one's experienced the actual game, I see the criticism as (sorta) unfounded, although of course I understand where everyone comes from. I could probably rebut lots of points from previous posts(not to make the game look good, just rebut), but it's pretty petty.

And reviews based on scored would be considerably arbitrary if they didn't have actual reviews to go along with it. Luckily, I'm sure we can all find reviews from those that have played it and see exactly the good points and bad points of the game.
And yes, all that very descriptive stuff for a shitty game you described could get a fuckstick from gamespot to give it a 9/10, but I'd rather not listen to some random fuckstick reviewer and listen to those that are trusted to do what they are paid for, which is reviewing games. Those are the ones I try to listen to, and I notice that the score the give is quite different from reactions of people here, which, like I said, makes me wonder.

And stereotypes don't make anything bad. It's if it works or not that makes it bad.

NOTE: posted after the kuake dude above me, sorry.

 

[Daxis]

even ignoring actual ratings by trusted reviewers

I won't trust anyone on the payroll of a related interest. I wouldn't even trust my own reviews of my own picture books.

And by "sales reviews," I didn't mean "sales numbers." I meant "reviews given for the purpose of bolstering sales." Which, y'know, is exactly what professional reviews are. It didn't used to be like this, because the only association magazines had with game publishers was for permissions. They made their money from sales rather than from sponsorship, and were entertainment magazines disguised as game review publications.

Not sure if I can argue with you, as I don't actually know much about what you're talking and about this area of the entertainment industry, so all I can say is that if even professional reviews are biased and arbitrary, why the hell should I trust a entire thread of non professional reviews when considering to buy this game? It feels sorta like an entire group of like minded amateur(non paid) people are reviewing this game, which sorta feels like the fuckstick my opium eyes was talking about.

Also, Big Rigs only gets bad reviews these days because it's the quintessential "worst game ever." If it was released today, it would get a 70% at least.

Careful there, it makes like you're defending Big rigs. No, seriously, I can see the reasons why it's called the worse game ever. There are actual reasons by actual professionals, and not only that, back up by a crapload of people. I do believe that's why it's not getting as high as 70% ratings, even if it were to be released today.

bandwagoning

I have distrusted this game since it was announced that there would be more than one installment before it was even put into development. That is like the opposite of a bandwagon.

Sorry, dude, I'm not sure what this means. Do you mean the novas crystallis thing or because it was behind development or something like that?

 

[mawk]

many people agreeing on something does not necessarily reduce the validity of the thing

people's opinions differing greatly from official sources is a nonissue. reviews are subjective, always, and as human beings we all have a different take on the world around us. the reviewers have the right to like the game, and I have the right to say that, given all that I've seen, I'm less than thrilled

the criticism is far from unfounded. the opinions stated so far are explicitly preliminary; no one is claiming to have knowledge they do not, and many have admitted that their opinion may change once they try it out.

bottom line, you don't have to defend the game just yet. you haven't played it either, remember, and I think you're just being a little too susceptible to the common internet stigma against popular opinions. you're free to ignore our opinions, but don't challenge our ability to hold them. it seems like everyone in the topic has done enough research to be entitled to their preliminary thoughts.

 

[Daxis]

sure, make sense. I was in the susceptibility of the popular opinions thing, but I'm pretty sure it was mostly because I'm halfway a FF fan and disliked so much criticism which, in light of reviewers, I feel is unfounded. Also, I like pretty pictures with cool explosions and shit.

I'm gonna have to ask why I shouldn't challenge everyone's ability to hold these opinions, though. If you're gonna have an opinion on something, shouldn't you be able to back it up so we can understand why? Also, if I can find something different and contradictory to these opinions, shouldn't I try to sorta bring that to light or whatever?

 

[united washcloth express]

p.s.: I was lazily defending the game by asking who here has actually experienced the game and experienced the gameplay and the story or whatever before giving actual criticism, because, while I see people here who live in western countries and speak no japanese, I see lots of criticism for something they've never played. The worse score I've seen on this game is a 70%, which, honestly? Is pretty damn good.

Hai, I'm UWE. I've played it, as the guy in the dorm room next to me is a friend from high school who is pretty Weaboo. He imports his RPGs as 'Western RPGs are boring and unimaginative.' Still don't agree with him.

Anyways, the battle system is like a really, really basic version of a Tales game. You control one character. You don't move the character. The character moves itself. It is still turned based, except the characters run around in pseudo real-time. The storyline is absolute garbage. It is a mixture of Final Fantasy 7 and 10 - I mean a direct copy. The only real character with depth is the black guy.

THIS IS NOT A SPOILER, BUT A STANDARD PLOT POINT. (Actually, there's not much story to be honest. I can't really ruin anything.) The black guy has a dad. The Chocobo is for his kid. That is his story.

There are no towns. For the first 20 hours, you walk in what can be described as a corridor. 10 hours after that is left for you to explore and do side quests, which are typical MMO "Kill this enemy. Great, now kill 10 of these enemies." After that, the rest of the game resumes the corridor route.


I am not a huge Final Fantasy fan, so it had no redeeming value for me at all. My friend who bought the game is a huge, self proclaimed Square Enix fanboy. Even he thought it sucked. He found it pretty though.

 

[Daxis]

well that sucks.
:down:


EDIT: If I can, I'll probably buy it anyways. For popular franchises, I usually buy the game anyways cause franchises always have people that don't like it and all. Besides, I'm a FFfanboy.

 

[united washcloth express]

Oh, I left the BEST part out.

You know how there are 4 slots on the battle menu? Well the top one says, 'Auto-Battle.' :3

This is because Square has added a combo system. Sounds nifty, right? The problem is that battles are still really fast, as in enemies attack you at a pretty rapid pace. It comes down to three options. You can either:

A. Shift through each of your techniques and moves, picking and choosing which ones you want to chain together. (You will be hit a lot by enemies. It is still possible to do this, but you better be quick.)

B. Choose skills randomly. (You might do a lot of damage, you might not.)

or C. Choose Auto-Battle. (The game will automatically choose the best attacks to chain together for you. If these skills require you to mash a button, you still get to do that.)

Combined that with the fact that this game has way too many cutscenes and you have an interactive movie.

 

[bacon]

Im just going to insert myself here o;

FFX also had a continmerous map, though. FF13 is using a steamroll-Point-A-to-Point-B formula with no backtracking.

If you really think about it, other than the monster hunter quest or the a sidequest here and there, there wasn't really any reason to backtrack in FFX. o:

So you like watching the AI do things for you? You might as well play Madden and watch the game play against itself, goddamn.

I don't see why people like this crap so much. It's not even interactive anymore; at least clicking Attack a million times in a turn-based JRPG gave you the illusion of doing something, whereas FF13 doesn't even pretend to let you play.

Honestly, if you have your hands full with one character, I really don't mind not controlling the other characters directly. If you have smart AI and your controlled character is actively engaged, I find hardly any wrong in this. You are able to customize your AI as well. I understand the point you are making however.

Well someone was kind enough to show us the maps of the first 3 chapters of the game (There's 13, nice gimmick!)

There seems to be a lot of little gimmicks that are on this game. Its pretty distasteful.

Furthermore, if your 1 character dies in battle, game over, even if the other people survive.

Again, its one of those things that I really dont mind personally as long as the AI are smart.

When you exit the battle, AUTO HEALZOR!!! gay.

It beats wasting money on potions and whatnot. Not only that, if the difficulty is that high for the need to do this, then the game might take some strategy to beat.

If you DO die in a battle, you can restart... from the start of the battle, some people think this is an advantage, not me, they're making it too easy...

I find it annoying when you do an hour's work only to die in some cheap way. o:

But the one thing I actually like... I really dig the music I've heard, tbh.

From what I have heard, its catchy at best. o;

gameplay is an integral part of the video game medium, and exploration is an integral part of jrpg gameplay.

Again, which is a real shame. Im one of those rare people who like FF12 personally. Sure it didn't have the best of anything, but it was extremely expansive and everything including your characters felt like they were evolving and getting better. It took a totally different approach then FFX, and I found myself lost in the amount of extra stuff. I also liked the bestiary. :D

I mean, no world map

To me, I find world maps extremely gimmicky and uninspiring.

Basically, "you westerners with your nonlinear games are too shallow to understand our design decisions"

While I agree that SE has handled the situation poorly, there is a valid point to this imo. Different games appeal to different people. Its weird how we consider some things cliche and something not, and this depends on where you live. Don't get me wrong, Im not biased on where a game comes from, as long as the game is fun. In my opinion however, people are vouching on how WKC was a great game and whatnot, but it was something I have played time and time again. To me, it was boring and uninspiring. There was some side things to do here and there, but again, the formula wasn't very fun or original to begin with. I haven't played FF13 yet, therefore I have no clue how it handles or plays out. But from what I see, it has more originality than something like WKC.
It boils down to different stokes for different folks.

e enjoy well-written, complex characters and strong, thematic storytelling in our RPGs instead of one-note androgynous dipshits with ridiculous hairstyles going from Plot Point A to Plot Point B

I loled at this. Ya, SE could use a touch of realism. o;



From what I have heard, it has something going in the first half of the game, but falls flat in the second half, which is a real shame considering this is a story driven game. o:

I also think the names aren't very good.

What I also found disappointing was the lack of towns and whatnot. Its always interesting to have good townsfolk who give you background information, it really adds to the game. Also, the lack of sidequests is a real drag. ):

I guess Im really not biased on these games. Im not a FF fanboy nor a hardcore RPG gamer, but I do enjoy a good game. I guess I will have to wait until the game actually comes out. o:


Also, guys, there is no need for argument. No need to get worked up over Final Fantasy, lol.

 

[mawk]

I'm gonna have to ask why I shouldn't challenge everyone's ability to hold these opinions, though. If you're gonna have an opinion on something, shouldn't you be able to back it up so we can understand why? Also, if I can find something different and contradictory to these opinions, shouldn't I try to sorta bring that to light or whatever?

sure, you can bring it to light. however, it is impossible to disprove an opinion, as an opinion is not fact. the most you can do is assert that the person in question is not entitled to their opinion due to lack of knowledge or personal bias, but I believe that no one here is overstepping what their knowledge entitles them to.

basically, I think that you're being a little butthurt that people are dissing a game that you wanna like, but I've been too polite to say it until now.

UWE, those comments on the plot more or less fall in line with what I was thinking. a resistance movement battling an evil autocracy bent of hiding the truth from its citizens, in which you control an ex-member of the evil group?

parts of it seem like it could be an enjoyable deconstruction of the old jrpg concept of "chosen ones", but looking at TWEWY, which also had a concept with a lot of potential that they completely failed to live up to, I'm not confident.

re: the battle speed, surely they've included an option to slow it down so that you actually have a chance of picking and choosing your actions?

 

[bacon]

Oh, I left the BEST part out.

You know how there are 4 slots on the battle menu? Well the top one says, 'Auto-Battle.' :3

This is because Square has added a combo system. Sounds nifty, right? The problem is that battles are still really fast, as in enemies attack you at a pretty rapid pace. It comes down to three options. You can either:

A. Shift through each of your techniques and moves, picking and choosing which ones you want to chain together. (You will be hit a lot by enemies. It is still possible to do this, but you better be quick.)

B. Choose skills randomly. (You might do a lot of damage, you might not.)

or C. Choose Auto-Battle. (The game will automatically choose the best attacks to chain together for you. If these skills require you to mash a button, you still get to do that.)

Combined that with the fact that this game has way too many cutscenes and you have an interactive movie.

That pretty lame to tell you the truth. Like, is there any way to change the speed or whatnot or even organize your moves? The last thing I want to do is randomly choose my skills and whatnot. o:

 

[mawk]

christ, square enix. you make games. the duty falls on you to explore the possibilities of the medium, finding new ways to use the connection between the player and the game. you do not shove the player to the side so they don't get in the way of your storytelling.

the player is the most important part of the game! if you don't integrate them somehow, why are you working with an interactive medium in the first place!?

 

[Kuahewa huki 'ino]

Well a big ol' storm has a-brewed while I was typing all this up, but hopefully you'll find time to read it.

Not sure if I can argue with you, as I don't actually know much about what you're talking and about this area of the entertainment industry, so all I can say is that if even professional reviews are biased and arbitrary, why the hell should I trust a entire thread of non professional reviews when considering to buy this game? It feels sorta like an entire group of like minded amateur(non paid) people are reviewing this game, which sorta feels like the fuckstick my opium eyes was talking about.

Well, this was some time ago in the industry--fifteen or sixteen years sounds about right. The only officially-sponsored magazine was Nintendo Power, but there were a number of third-party magazines that delivered honest reviews in a humor magazine format (well, okay, there were magazines that didn't do this, but they tended to sink pretty quickly). As such, readers bought them for their comedic content. While most of their articles, yes, reviewed games, because of the delivery style, appropriately-low (or, alternatively, deservedly-high) numerical scores took a distant backseat to content, even though they were the publications' marketing point. The magazines' writers knew that their audience wanted a fun read more than a deep analysis, so they made sure to emphasize the words rather than the numbers.

Where did the scores show up? Not on the cover page, not next to the title of the article, but in a little box in the bottom-right corner next to the writer's name at the end of the review. Unflattering comic-bubbled photoshops of the writers and editors got more space and emphasis.

Shit, I remember in particular one magainze that ignored all the hype surrounding Donkey Kong Country 2. While Nintendo Power was raving about it, they gave it a 6.5 or so, and spent the article complimenting the graphics, sound, and entertaining dialog, while pissing all over the idea of Dixie Kong and some of the more ridiculous animal friend gameplay sections.

This changed when all big-name publications got sponsorship from game companies (the ones that didn't went out of business). It might be a side-effect of the late-N64/PSX-era console wars, but scores and percentage ratings became much more important than what reviewers had to say about the games, so content of reviews took a distant backseat to numerical scores. Game companies know that these days, numbers sell, and that these 70%s and 9/10s you're bringing up are much more "important" to readers than what people are actually saying about the games.

Where do you see the scores when you click on "Reviews" on Gamefaqs? That's right: directly next to the title of the article.

This is reflected in the "fuckstick" reviews, in which they praise a good game and claim numerous times that it has almost no flaws while giving it a comparatively poor score (5-7), or can't stop talking about all of a game's flaws and how terrible of an experience it is to play, but give it a high score, because these people are in the "number" mindset rather than the "content" mindset. A bad reviewer does this because he or she puts all the importance in a digital system (a score of 1-10) rather than an analog one (a collection of thoughts and reactions that can't necessarily be measured by numbers).

If anything, no-name reviewers who are willing to talk about a game's strengths (or flaws) without needing to toss numbers all over the place are more reliable than anyone else--better still if they aren't teenagers or part of a particular fanbase. That's why I said that adults who play video games purely for recreation are the best reviewers (especially parents of young children--well, good parents, at least). If they have kids but they're playing video games, it probably means that they are intimately familiar with what they're playing, have well-defined tastes, and have neither patience nor time for anything that will waste the latter. Adults with children are jaded creatures. As long as it's not directly related to their young'uns, they will shower anything especially great with deserved praise, and have nothing but a scaldingly scathing disdain for everything else.

Careful there, it makes like you're defending Big rigs.

What, there's something wrong with that? big rigs is so bad that it's almost artistic okay

My point isn't that it's not a terrible game--because it is--but I am saying that if it weren't already recognized as such, it would get ratings of at least "average" for the sake of selling things.

Sorry, dude, I'm not sure what this means. Do you mean the novas crystallis thing or because it was behind development or something like that?

Some years ago, Enix said, "well FF13 is going to be a franchise that spans over ten years of releases!"--which yeah, I'm pretty sure it was back when Fabula Nova Crystallis was part of FF13's tentative title. It requires a little bit of reading comprehension, but it's not hard to understand that this is basically the direct admission that their express plan was to coast on the ubiquitous name of the Final Fantasy series alone without actually putting too much thought into content. It also guarantees that, from a storytelling point of view, the series will have no conclusive endings.

In conclusion,

Honestly, if you have your hands full with one character, I really don't mind not controlling the other characters directly. If you have smart AI and your controlled character is actively engaged, I find hardly any wrong in this. You are able to customize your AI as well. I understand the point you are making however.

In my mind, FFX-2, FF12, and FF13 are not the natural progression of the ATB system (especially not 12 and 13). If you've ever played it, the natural progression is Grandia 2--addition of spatial and active elements, but for the express purpose of adding a layer of strategy. You managed your party in battle, and they all acted an moved in real-time. Their XZ-plane coordinates were critical to spell use. But! The action paused every time one party member's ATB filled up and let you input commands in relation to the ATB and physical location of every other ally and enemy in combat. You still clicked Attack a lot, but you were given a number of options and had to consider a number of different angles and consequences for your actions. It was well-paced and fun. You said you understand, but I'll say it again for the sake of rounding out the statement: watching your characters do stuff is not playing a game. Grandia 2 has a lot of watching your characters do stuff, but the point is that you are the one telling them what to do--and that is playing a game.